Rooted in Jesus | Rows of Sharon

Members of the Confirmation Collaborative (CC) made a presentation at Rooted in Jesus at the end of January 2020. Four of us (Patrick Kangrga, Jen Enriquez, Lisa Kimball, and myself) gave an overview of what the focus and purpose of the CC is and shared why each of us care about confirmation with young people from our own context. We began by inviting everyone present (there were about 75 folks) to get in triads and share a story of their baptism, confirmation, or how they are seeking to be a disciple of Christ.

In a nutshell, the Confirmation Collaborative is an open group of individuals who desire to reorient the Episcopal Church to what confirmation is all about. We want to be inspirational, but grounded; informative but open to conversation; and provide best practices toward helping young people “make a mature public affirmation of their faith and commitment to the responsibilities of their Baptism and to receive the laying on of hands by the bishop” (BCP, 412). You can download the presentation in pdf form here.

We de-bunked some “myths” and shared some “facts”

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It’s only been a couple of weeks since (reportedly) 1,300 Episcopalians and friends met in Atlanta, Georgia for what was subversively called Episcopalooza or “General Convention with workshops, but no legislation.” The brainchild of Bill Campbell, former Executive Director of Forma: The Network for Christian Formation this conference brought together various cohorts within the Episcopal Church (and beyond) to explore formation, evangelism, preaching, leadership, mission, stewardship, and communications. A massive undertaking with a lot of behind the scenes work from many individuals, it was the Church at its best. Worship was extraordinary, workshops were inspiring and informative, creativity was abundant, and Jesus was proclaimed. Even the hotel staff got in on the action and “rooted for Jesus.”

It was too much to digest and while I got to see LOTS of friends and colleagues, I missed many opportunities to network or attend presentations because I couldn’t be at two (or three) places at once. Thankfully, many presentations were live-streamed via Forma’s Facebook page and many were recorded so that even those unable to be present could be fed by the experience. My take-aways and learnings:

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